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which were unknown to the English, till, in 1609, Sir John Summers made a voyage to NorthAmerica, and difcovered them and afterwards invited fome of his countrymen to fettle a plan tation there. That he became the private gentle man, at least three years before his deceafe, is pretty obvious from another circumstance: If mean, from that remarkable and well-known Story, which Mr. Rowe has given us of our au thor's intimacy with Mr. John Combe, an old gentleman noted thereabouts for his wealth and ufury and upon whom Shakespeare made the fols. lowing facetious epitaph.ng cours Ten in the hundred lies here ingray'd, di 'Tis a hundred to ten his foul is not fav'd; 19quq, If any man afk who lies in this tomb, Oh! oh! quoth the devil, 'tis my John-a-Comber

This farcaftical piece of wit was, at the gentleman's own request, thrown out extemporally in his company. And this Mr. John Conite İ take to be the fame, who, by Dugdale in his antiquities of Warwickshire, is faid to have died in the year 1614, and for whom at the upper end of the quire, of the guild of the holy crofs at Stratford, a fair monument is erected, having a statue thereon cut in alabafter, and in a gown, with this Epitaph." Here lyeth interred the body of "John Combe Efq; who died the 10th of July,

1614, who bequeathed several annual charities "to the parish of Stratford, and 100l. to be lent "to fifteen poor tradefmen from three years to

"three

1

<<three years, changing the parties every third year, at the rate of fifty fhillings per Annum, the increafe to be diftributed to the almespoor there."The donation has all the air of a rich and fagacious ufurer.

Shakespeare himfelf did not furvive Mr. Combe long, for he died in the year 1616, the 53d of his age. He lies buried on the north fide of the chancel in the great church at Stratford; where. a monument, decent enough for the time, is erected to him, and placed against the wall. He is represented under an arch in a fitting pofture, a cushion fpread before him, with a pen in his right hand, and his left refted on a fcroul of paper. The Latin diftich, which is placed under the cushion, has been given us by Mr. Pope, or his graver, in this manner.

INGEN TO Pylium, Genio Socratem, Arte ylistog Maronem,

1 Terra tegit, Populus mæret, Olympus habet.

-T confefs' conceive the difference beI twixt ingenio and genio in the firft verfe. They feem to me intirely fynonomous Terms; nor was the Pylian fage Neftor celebrated for his ingenuity, but for an experience and judgment owing to his long age. Dugdale, in his antiquities of IVarwickhire, has copied this diftich with a diftinction which Mr. Rowe has followed, and which certainly reftores us the true meaning of the epitaph.

33.3

Ju

JUDICIO Pylium, Genio Socratem, &c.

In 1614, the greater part of the town of Stratford was confumed by fire; but our Shakespeare's house, among fome others, efcaped the flames. This houfe was firft built by Sir Hugh Clopton, a younger brother of an ancient family in that neighbourhood, who took their name from the manor of Clopton. Sir Hugh was fheriff of Lon don in the reign of Richard III. and Lord mayor in the reign of King Henry VII. To this gen tleman the town of Stratford is indebted for the fine ftone-bridge, confifting of fourteen arches, which at an extraordinary expence he built over the Avon, together with a caufe-way running at the weft end thereof; as alfo for rebuilding the chapel adjoining to his houfe, and the crofs ifle in the church there. It is remarkable of hims that, though he lived and died a bachelor, among the other extenfive charities which he left both to the city of London and town of Stratfords he bequeathed confiderable legacies for the marriage of poor maidens of good name and fame both in London and at Stratford. Notwithstanding which large donations in his life, and bequests at his death, as he had purchafed the manor of Clopton's and all the estate of the family, fo he left the fame again to his elder brother's fon with a very great addition: (a proof, how well beneficence and oeconomy may walk hand in hand in wife

families :)

families:) Good part of which estate is yet in the poffeffion of Edward Clopton, Efq; and Sir Hugh Clopton, Knt. lineally defcended from the elder brother of the firft Sir Hugh: Who particularly bequeathed to his nephew, by his will, his houfe, by the name of his Great-house in Stratford.

The estate had now been fold out of the Clopton family for above a century, at the time when Shakespeare became the purchaser: who, having repaired and modelled it to his own mind, changed the name to New-place; which the manfion-house, fince erected upon the fame fpot, at this day retains. The houfe and lands, which attended it, continued in Shakespeare's defcendants to the time of the Reftoration: when they were repurchased by the Clopton family, and the manfion now belongs to Sir Hugh Clopton, Knt. To the favour of this worthy gentleman I owe the knowledge of one particular, in honour of our poet's once dwelling-house, of which, I prefume, Mr. Rowe never was apprized. When the civil war raged in England, and King Charles the Firft's Queen was driven by the neceflity of affairs to make a recefs in Warwickshire, the kept her Court for three Weeks in New-place. We may reasonably suppose it then the best private house in the town; and her Majefty preferred it to the College, which was in the poffeffion of the Combe-Family, who did not fo ftrongly favour the King's party.

VOL. I.

How

How much our authoc employed himself in, poetry," after his retirement from the stage, does not fo evidently appear? Very few posthumous fketches of his pen have been recovered to afcer tain that point. We have been told, indeed, in print, but not till very lately, that two large chefts full of this great man's loose papers and manuscripts, in the hands of an ignorant baker of Warwick, (who married one of the descendants from our Shakespeare) were carelessly fcattered and thrown about, as garret-lumber, and litter, to the particular knowledge of the late Sir William Bishop, till they were all confumed in the general fire and deftruction of that Town. I cannot help being a little apt to diftruft the authority of this tradition; because as his wife furvived him feven years, and as his favourite daughter Susanna furvived her twenty-fix years, 'tis very improbable, they thould fuffer fuch a treafure to be removed, and tranflated into a remoter branch of the family, without a fcrutiny firft made into the 'value of it. This, I fay, inclines me to diftruft the authority of the relation; but, notwithstanding fuch an apparent improbability, if we really lost such a treasure, by whatever fatality or caprice of fortune they came into fuch ignorant and neglectful hands, I agree with the Relater, the misfortune is wholly irreparable.

To thefe particulars, which regard his perfon and private life, fome few more are to be gleaned

from